Juraj C. (source: YouTube/Fotor)
The pensioner who shot Prime Minister and Smer party leader Robert Fico in front of his bodyguards in broad daylight, in Handlová, a town in western Slovakia, last Wednesday might not have acted on his own, according to Interior Minister Matúš Šutaj Eštok of the Hlas party.
The minister said on Sunday afternoon that the attacker, Juraj C., might have been encouraged by other people. The claim comes after the police learned that someone - and it was not his tech illiterate wife - deleted content from his Facebook profile after the police arrested him.
Several hours prior to the minister’s press briefing, the flippant deputy speaker of parliament Andrej Danko claimed the following in an interview with the news channel TA3: “In three clicks, you can find out if someone paid him [to carry out the attack].” Danko helms the right-wing nationalist Slovenská Národná Strana (SNS) party, which sits in a coalition with Smer and Hlas.
Debunking one of several disinformation stories about the attack, the minister added that the two people, a blind woman with her hearing-impaired partner, who were standing near Juraj C. by the barrier where he shot at the premier, were not his accomplices.
Šutaj Eštok had previously claimed that Juraj C., an amateur writer, acted as a lone wolf and was not a member of any radicalised group. He insists that the attack had a political motive, given that Juraj C. was not a Fico supporter and opposed his government’s moves against the Special Prosecutor’s Office (now abolished), judges, non-governmental organisations, as well as the public broadcaster RTVS. The old man, a staunch supporter of Ukraine, has also disagreed with the government over halted military aid for Ukraine.
Detention
On Saturday, the Supreme Court sent 71-year-old Juraj C. into pre-trial custody, arguing that he might escape and commit another crime. The decision is not final. The defendant, who is facing a charge of attempted premeditated revenge murder, is represented by ex officio lawyer Martina Čierna.
Juraj C., who has confessed to the crime, has said that he did not want to kill the prime minister. But as information collected by intelligence agencies shows, the attacker had attended several government meetings in regions prior to the Handlová meeting.
“He might have waited for the right moment,” opined Defence Minister Robert Kaliňák of the Smer party on Sunday. Kaliňák is acting as Fico’s right-hand man, while he is recovering in a major hospital in Banská Bystrica, central Slovakia.
“The patient’s condition is stable,” the hospital announced on Monday morning.
Rebel with xenophobic views
The attacker, also a bow-tie wearer, is a man of paradoxes.
Juraj C., the grandfather and father of two, has been described by acquaintances as an intelligent, friendly man who has helped everyone. His political activism was a surprise to them, according to media reports.
The man from Levice, southern Slovakia, took different jobs during his career life, ranging from a miner to mason. In his spare time, he used to write books, such as “Ephphatha - On the Gypsies and Roma” and “The Dream of a Rebel”. He presided over a Levice writers’ club and joined the Slovak Writers’ Association in the past; both organisations have officially cancelled Juraj C.’s membership following the attack. No media have dived into his literature. “Ephphatha” is simply described as a book filled with anti-Roma sentiment, while some passages present “short odes about the greatness of the Roma intelligentsia”, according to the conservative daily Postoj. His acquaintances did not see him as a racist, some media outlets write, but as someone fighting those who refuse to contribute to society. The Roma, the second-largest minority in Slovakia, are stereotypically portrayed as a group that refuses to work and have often been discriminated against.
In one of his works, he also defends the shooter Ľubomír Harman, who in 2010 killed seven people, including his Roma neighbours, in Bratislava-Devínska Nová Ves. He says that the shooter was not mad, and his act was a consequence of the failure of all Slovak society.
“Where is the Slovak Breivik [a neo-Nazi terrorist who killed dozens of people in Norway in 2011, ed.]? He hasn't been born yet? And what if he was,” asks Juraj C. in one of his several books.
The pensioner was convinced at that time that the state was not interested in solving problems, including the Roma issue.
“If the state does not act, society acts, if society does not act, the individual acts, but then let’s not call them a madman,” writes Juraj C. in his book.
Furthermore, he criticised European governments for their failure to deal with threats, including immigrants.
Paradoxically, Juraj C., a gun owner, hoped to establish an anti-violence movement in 2016. “Violence is often the reaction of people, as a form of expression of ordinary dissatisfaction with the state of affairs. Let’s be dissatisfied, but not violent!” reads the petition asking for signatures. His attempt failed.
Juraj C. was 63 when he became the victim of an attack in a shopping mall, where he worked as a mall security guard. He was assaulted by a man under the influence of drugs.
His friend told the Sme daily that the amateur poet was, in his opinion, a “professional revolutionary” opposing sloppiness and laziness. He compared him to the Argentinian communist radical Che Guevara.
“I’m one of the crowd, so ‘Che’,” Juraj C. posted in an online discussion under the appeal for signatures. Pro-Russian Smer MP and deputy speaker of parliament Ľuboš Blaha admires Che Guevara. He replaced the president’s portrait with that of the Argentinian communist figure in his office last year, for which he had been prosecuted until March 2024, wrote a book named “Che”, and even announced a tour named after the radical.
The Czechoslovak communist secret police, ŠtB, listed Juraj C. as a rebel. In one of his books, Juraj C. described himself as follows:
“He came into conflict with state power, on the list of inconvenient people. Everywhere he went, he rebelled, and because he was alone, he burned like a torch. He bears a social feeling, dangerous to the dangerous. He is married, has two children, but was not a good father (he could not see the trees for the forest), living and writing in Levice.”
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
The man who is said to believe in the peaceful and dialogue-based politics of Zuzana Čaputová has become a focus for various camps in the aftermath of the attack. The extremists depict him as a liberal due to the name of the Levice club, which bears the Slovak name for rainbow, and for attending several anti-Fico protests.
Another group sees him as an extremist because he once recited a poem, in 2016, at an event organised by an extremist paramilitary group, Slovenskí branci (Slovak Conscripts), in Trnava, western Slovakia. Juraj C. praised the activity of the young people in the group. The man from Levice also showed up at an event hosted by Matica slovenská, a cultural institution that should promote and preserve Slovak culture, but has grown into a politicised, nationalist and, some say, pro-Russian institution.
“The media portrayal of Juraj C. as a fan of pro-national forces is absurd.” Matica wrote in its press release.
Tomáš Nociar, an expert on far-right groups, told the Denník N daily that the framing of some politicians and their supporters, when one group tries to portray the attacker as a fanatical liberal and the other as a radical nationalist, is completely wrong.
“Both interpretations are misleading and inaccurate,” he told the daily, adding that holding xenophobic views does not mean that Juraj C. supports the far right.
Nociar sees Juraj C. as a man of paradoxes: one who wanted to eliminate violence but liked the approach of Slovenskí branci, who attacked the democratically elected prime minister but said that his motive was the attack on democracy in Slovakia, described as a pacifist by the defence minister but owning a gun. Nor does Nociar agree with the comparison of Juraj C. to Che Guevara. Instead, Nociar compares the attacker and his action to the book “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” (1886) and the film “Falling Down” (1993).
“Che Guevara was a radical politician and revolutionary, Cintula is not.”
